Someone else lists my house, how to remove it?

Regulations/Tax Issues
22

Yes. He started this discussion in another thread, then asked how he can post a topic and hence this topic. In that thread he stated that he orally permitted the tenant to Airbnb the property. I looked for that statement but can’t find it.

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He says ‘ex-tenant’ here. I wonder if he thinks the tenant is ‘ex’ because the lease ended 12/31. I don’t know if that is necessarily the case; it might depend on the terms of the lease. But anyway he needs to give the person proper notice to evict them. He hasn’t mentioned that he’s done that.

23

Aha, thanks for explaining that. I noticed further down in this thread your mention of a previous thread. I’ll read through the whole thread before commenting in the future. My bad!

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24

In your situation I would call Airbnb and tell them they have two days to take down the listing of your property or you are going to the media. (Show them clause on your lease forbidding sub letting)

They do have an email owners in this situation can use but I can’t find it for you.

I would also call them out on it on social media

Presumably you have already served an eviction notice on the tenant. I believe in the US you might also be able to sue him for the profits he has made from listing your place @AlexWang

25

Thanks for all of kind replies. I slept due to time difference (I am in another country).
The ex-tenant has no written agreement, only oral one. I terminated it via IM message, 1+ month ahead. Anyway, this forum is not for legal judgement, I should talk it with attorney. I already get what I need (how to notice AirBnb) here.
The last topic in this forum should be: suppose the lease relationship is legally terminated, and the ex-tenant ignore all of my messages and continue to rent my house on AirBnb, what action can I take for AirBnb (I will try to evict him under help of attorney, but it takes half a year or longer)? From normal thinking, AirBnb can not provide rent information to public when it is noticed that it is illegal.

26

Are you saying there is no written lease?
Or are you saying, as you had said elsewhere, that the ex-tenant has no written agreement that permits him to sublet?

I don’t know what you terminated. You can’t terminate a lease arrangement in CA by instant message or email. I believe if the tenancy had been established for a year that a 60 day notice is required to end the tenancy. Check with your lawyer who should be writing these communications.

If what you terminated was your prior agreement to sublet, I don’t know if that can be by messaging and whether the tenant would have any defenses to your terminating the tenant’s ability to sublet. For example, could the tenant say that the tenant relied on your permission to sublet, that the tenant invested money to make the home suitable for a short-term rental and that you should not be able to revoke your permission without cause or compensation. I don’t know if that would be a successful argument.

You’ll need to ask your lawyer.

If the tenant is paying you rent, and you’re cashing the check, then it sounds like you’re accepting a month-to-month tenancy. Your attorney would need to terminate the lease by serving a proper writing. If the tenant did not quit the premises then your lawyer would send an eviction notice.

I would think that your best bet for Airbnb to remove the listing would be for your attorney to write a letter to the street address listed in the terms of service [888 Brannan Street, San Francisco, CA 94103], specifying the listing number [this is number in URL following ‘rooms/’ and describing the eviction action, perhaps submitting a notarized affidavit.

I don’t know whether Airbnb would get involved in removing the listing since really they just have your word and your attorney’s word that the tenant is acting improperly.

They don’t want to have to investigate whether you did or did not authorize the subletting, whether you could revoke that and, if you can, whether you revoked that properly, whether the tenant is legal now because you are accepting rent payments (?), whether you’ve provided the appropriate length of time for the eviction notice and served it properly, whether the tenant has any defenses to your revocation of permitting sublets and to the eviction process.

I wonder whether there is another basis that might motivate Airbnb to remove the listing that also does not harm you – for example if there was an unsafe condition. I wonder too that if you didn’t have the right to revoke the oral permission to sublet whether you would be acting improperly (and Airbnb too) by seeking and getting the listing removed (tortious interference with contract?).

You need to discuss all this with your lawyer.

You are saying it’s illegal. Actually with all you’ve said so far (and the facts not yet clear to me, nor am I related estate lawyer licensed in CA) it’s not clear to me that the tenant is an ex-tenant and is doing anything illegal.

You might save some money legal fees if when you go to the attorney you have a fact document with you.

– Write down the facts in chronological order.
– Number them.
– Where there is a written communication, label and reference the communication (which hopefully is dated) and attach at the end.
– If you find yourself writing pronouns like ‘it’ or ‘this’ or ‘that’ instead write out what you are referring to, like ‘the oral lease agreement’ or ‘my instant message dated x-xx-xx revoking consent to sublet,’ etc.

Writing this out will save the lawyer hours of time and therefore fees. The writing will also help prevent misunderstandings.

27

Just to be clear to new readers, the ‘someone else’ is a tenant who apparently had an oral lease.

But at one point the homeowner did give consent orally. Then later that consent was taken back/revoked.

There are some admitted language issues here. That’s especially problematic when the lease is not written, and there are some messages and/or emails that we’re not seeing.

In addition, it’s a reasonable assumption that a lawyer has not yet been involved since I would think a lawyer would insist on a written lease. It strongly appears to me that the owner’s notice to terminate the month-to-month lease was inadequate under CA law because it was not served personally or by mail; email for such notices is not permitted in CA (I used to live there).

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28

If a tenant is posting the property as an AirBnB it is possible that it is perfectly legal for the tenant to do so.

Standard leases often say “no subleasing” – not always – but short term rentals may not qualify for the legal definition of a “lease” where your property is located.

If you don’t have a written lease and you have a tenant, then the AirBnB listing is the least of your problems.

If you have a homeowners association (HOA), they might be able to help. However it is usually safe to assume that if something is not specifically prohibited in a lease, then the tenant is allowed to do it, so long as it is not otherwise illegal.

If this “host” is someone who scammed AirBnB–I do not know how, it would be a fairly elaborate ruse–then you need to get AirBnB on the phone with someone who speaks good English.

29

This is my understanding of the situation.

30

Standard leases in the UK by default have no sub leasing and tenants are not allowed to see the property for commercial use. @SleepingCoyote

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31

Where did the OP say he had a month to month lease? He said the tenant’s lease ran out the end of Dec. Sounds like a year-long lease to me and when it is over, it is over, a tenant has to leave.
The only thing he said he had a verbal agreement for was the tenant subletting on Airbnb.

32

When a lease expires, say a year-long lease, the landlord needs to provide a notice (in CA, 30 days, 60 days or 90 days before the end of the term depending on how long the tenant has been there) to leave. In CA that must be in writing and served in person or through the mail. This was not done here.

When the tenant stays after expiration of the lease, paying rent, the tenancy in most states is converted into a month-to-month tenancy.

That’s not clear to me. I’ve asked that question.

But consider this statement.

I’ve asked what agreement this is. The ‘1+ month ahead’ implies to me that this IM message was about the lease.

But I asked the question of whether it pertains to the lease or the agreement to sublet.

Let’s see if the OP chooses to answer.

33

This doesn’t have to do with Airbnb, but my horrible neighbor, now gone had a lease that expired, she’d paid no rent for 1 1/2 years and it took the landlord months to get her out going through the court system. This is not California, but I was shocked at how long it took, how many times the case got pushed forward.

After she’d been legally evicted, she returned to spend another week or two at the house. It was a nightmare for the landlord. But, finally she was escorted out. So glad she’s gone.

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34

Yeah, this is a real problem.

I keep reading about costs of housing and efforts to ‘rein in’ landlords with all kinds of laws, moratoriums, rent rate increases and so forth. I understand that there are some bad landlords out there but the laws really make the long-term rental business scary for the small-time landlord who has just one or a few properties to rent.

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35

The first year of her not paying rent, the landlord got some reimbursement because of Covid. After that the landlord took her to court to have the judge say let’s give her some more time, case dismissed. Several months later the landlord took it back to court but it took months to get it resolved.
I think the judges will bend over backwards to keep renters in their homes whether they pay or not.
The town I’m in which isn’t that large, I followed all the cases where people were not paying and landlords were trying to evict them. Some weeks there were 20 eviction cases. This was a world I had no idea about.
The house on my street had dumpster loads hauled away now $10,000’s rehabbing the house that was trashed.
You could not pay me to be a landlord, it’s a crap shoot.

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36

It took me over 6 months to evict a hoarding tenant and the process was expensive. At least she kept paying the rent, because she thought that while she paid, she was safe.

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37

I certainly understand that. I feel the same way.

I am a liberal voter but was really outraged when the moratorium on evictions and foreclosures was established because it’s so unfair to landlords, many of whom are not rich but even if they were that’s no reason to take money from just those renting out properties. I’m all in favor of protecting renters and homeowners when Covid struck, just not on the back of landlords.

I wonder how much was spent with lawyers on these eviction cases you cited.

Then people wonder why we don’t have more long-term housing.

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38

I’m in a couple of landlord groups and we heard a lot of horror stories from folks in your state. Apparently, it’s not normally like that there. It is considered landlord-friendly in normal times but it ended up having one the lengthiest and most comprehensive covid eviction moratoriums in the country. (I think it only ended a few months ago). Landlords there felt really blindsided. I felt especially bad for them.

I had to evict someone just a couple of months before my state ended its eviction moratorium, in May 2021. Fortunately, the fool was too arrogant to fill out the covid protections paperwork (he also sent a bizarre 72-page manifesto as an answer to the court, lol) so it only took 31 days to remove him. I was also able to get a judgment against him that is still marring his credit report. But I was unbelievably lucky. Those moratoriums were nuts. And I’m also a liberal voter.

The discussion in the groups is currently centered around this crazy federal renters’ protection initiative. I believe your girl Elizabeth is one of the leaders of it. They want to impose a national rent control and prohibit non-renewals by landlords without cause (that means that once you get a tenant you’re stuck with them forever until they want to leave unless you can evict them).

I think the rent control is just foolish because a lot of rent will be higher with it than without it. That’s because I only raise rent when my costs go up. But costs don’t increase on the same schedule or in the same amount as allowed rent increases under rent control. So because I wouldn’t be able to raise rent as needed when my property taxes increase, I would have to raise rent the maximum amount every chance that the rent control allowed to be covered for future possible costs.

But I could live with the rent control. But I couldn’t live with not being able to not renew leases. I live in the house too and some people are too difficult to live with. I was often stuck with awful neighbors when I was a renter, I’m not going to do it in the house that I bought. My apartments will go back to airbnb or stay empty if they pass this thing about non-renewals. I’m not the only one who feels this way so that’s a lot of housing units that will come off the market.

I especially resent it because the federal minimum wage is still $7.25. It has been since 2009 and it was already too low in 2009. They should put their energy into that.

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39

I know my liberal politicians mean well but seems to me that the LAST thing you’d want to do is make building or offering long-term rentals less attractive. In my opinion what we need is to dismantle/reform some of the governmental controls we have (zoning, rent control) that remove the incentives of the marketplace.

More CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau), much much better K-12 education (non zip-code determined), pre-K education, pre-natal care and education, child care, school lunches/breakfasts, no non-competes, federal funding of federal mandates, more ‘front end’ initiatives that help people earn and keep money, more progressive taxation, and messing with markets as little as possible. Because fair markets generally work and because capitalism works better than top-down government controls. My concern on the minimum wage is all the effort going into that just incentivizes companies to get rid of workers faster; I prefer a much expanded earned income tax credit that will accomplish the same increase in pay without incentivizing companies to get rid of workers. The credit ‘seems’ to cost more but it’s just that you see the costs.

40

I thought you might be interested in this gifted Washington Post story today.

https://wapo.st/3HzYOPV

One of its quotations:

Officials said the president, for example, does not have the authority to regulate rent nationwide.

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Seriously, you wouldn’t be able to not renew a lease in the home you also live in? That’s crazy, I’m glad I don’t live that side of the pond (assuming you’re in U.S). Here in UK it’s becoming much more difficult to evict tenants (not housemates) to the point where landlords are exiting the market in droves with consequent rental price rises.